NEVER JUDGE A BOOK BY IT’S COVER
MEET THE UNICORNS OF A24’s Cult-Destined Hit
Forget everything you think you know about unicorns. In Death of a Unicorn, A24 takes one of mythology’s most beloved creatures and drags it—bloodied, snarling, and uncomfortably alive—into a realm of horror-satire. Gone are the gentle, shimmering beings of children’s fantasies; here, the unicorn is a feral, sinewy predator, its jagged horn and unsettling gaze hinting at an intelligence as old as the forests it haunts. It’s not a passive victim or whimsical companion—it’s both coveted prize and calculating avenger.
In this world, unicorn blood and horn aren’t symbols of purity but commodities—miraculous, monetizable resources that a greedy corporate elite is eager to extract. What follows is an “eat-the-rich” fever dream, where the exploitation of nature’s rarest wonders turns myth into a deadly contract, and the creatures themselves are more than willing to balance the scales. Part apex predator, part ecological metaphor, these unicorns embody a dangerous beauty that defies morality as we know it. They’re not good. They’re not evil. They’re simply defending their own—and in A24’s hands, that makes them unforgettable.
The Unicorn Unhinged
For centuries, unicorns have been the embodiment of innocence—a porcelain figurine on your childhood shelf, a Lisa Frank sticker shimmering on your school binder. But A24’s take? Imagine if those same unicorns spent centuries watching humanity raze forests, hunt their kind, and bottle their magic for profit. You wouldn’t be seeing rainbows either.
Director Alex Scharfman’s design for these creatures is arresting. They’re not pastel mascots; they’re sinew and muscle, hide stretched tight over a predator’s frame. Their horns aren’t smooth ivory but weathered and jagged, like the blade of a weapon forged in secret. Their eyes—deep, almost human—hold something worse than anger: memory.
On screen, they move with the patience of big cats, biding their time before the strike. A twitch of the ear here, the faintest scrape of hoof on stone there. The camera lingers on them the way fashion photography lingers on couture gowns—every detail telling a story, every flaw revealing the hand of the maker. Only here, the “maker” is a brutal natural history, not a Paris atelier.
Capitalism vs. Myth
The narrative hinge of Death of a Unicorn is a simple but wickedly sharp conceit: What if unicorn blood could cure disease, halt aging, and supercharge human vitality? How quickly would the most powerful among us build an industry around that? In this cinematic world, the answer is immediate—surgical extraction labs, genetic research units, private safaris under the cover of philanthropy.
It’s a darkly chic metaphor for the ways we commodify beauty and mystery in real life. Much like exotic skins or rare stones, these unicorn parts become luxury goods—symbols of status for the ultra-rich, marketed under the guise of “advancing humanity.” But in A24’s biting satire, that veneer peels away quickly.
The villains of the piece, an insular group of oligarchs and venture capital titans, speak in the language of tech disruption and wellness retreats, but their intentions are far less palatable. Every conversation about “sustainability” is a thin veil for extraction. The unicorns, of course, don’t care about corporate spin—they respond with the kind of direct, unfiltered violence that feels almost cleansing.
Eco-Horror with Teeth
Eco-horror has always thrived on the idea of nature fighting back—Jaws, Annihilation, even The Host. But Death of a Unicorn turns the concept into something darker, less tidy. This isn’t about “man versus nature.” It’s about nature evolving into something humans can’t charm, buy, or cage.
The unicorns here aren’t villains, but they’re not gentle guardians either. They’re a force of equilibrium, almost mathematical in their reprisals. One attack is a warning, another is a statement, and by the third, you realize there’s an intelligence behind the bloodshed.
Visually, these sequences are some of the film’s most exhilarating. The cinematography frames the attacks like high-fashion editorials—slow-motion arcs of a horn through glass, the shimmer of rain-soaked fur under moonlight, a crimson spray rendered almost painterly. It’s horror as art, and it forces you to see the violence as a kind of reclamation rather than a tragedy.
Satire Through an Eat-the-Rich Lens
No one does decadence-meets-depravity quite like A24. From The Menu to Bodies Bodies Bodies, their films often dissect the absurdities of the wealthy with a scalpel made of irony. Death of a Unicorn continues this tradition, serving its richest moments—literally—in country estates and private islands where champagne flows and the unicorn horns are kept in temperature-controlled vaults.
The script toys with the discomfort of its audience. You’re repulsed by the exploitation, yet fascinated by the lush interiors, the couture wardrobes, the diamond-encrusted syringes used for “unicorn extractions.” The satire lands hardest when the wealthy attempt to aestheticize their crimes, throwing masquerade balls where unicorn imagery drips from every chandelier and floral arrangement, as though myth itself could be domesticated.
And just when you think the film might tip too far into spectacle, it cuts back to the forest—a stark, almost silent contrast, where the unicorns wait. You realize the pageantry is nothing but a delay before an inevitable reckoning.
The Unicorn as Cult Icon in the Making
From the moment the first trailer dropped, the creature design for Death of a Unicorn had Tumblr feeds and Reddit threads ablaze. There’s a reason. The unicorn is both beautiful and grotesque, a rare combination that practically begs for cultural obsession.
Expect fan art that reimagines them as haute couture models, cosplay where horns are as sharp as stilettos, and limited-edition figurines that will sell out in seconds. In the way that Hereditary gave us the unforgettable image of Toni Collette’s ceiling crawl, Death of a Unicorn will be remembered for the slow, deliberate emergence of a horn from the shadows.
A24 knows the alchemy of cult status, and these unicorns are its latest—and perhaps most marketable—concoction. They’re the kind of character you see once and instantly understand will follow you into memes, tattoos, and Halloween costumes for years to come.
The Team Behind the Magic
The film is the directorial debut of Alex Scharfman, a filmmaker who previously earned acclaim for cinematography work on projects that balanced grit with elegance. His vision here is both reverent to the unicorn myth and ruthless in deconstructing it.
The effects team—led by creature designer Maria Lantini—used a hybrid approach of practical animatronics and cutting-edge VFX, ensuring the unicorns felt as tangible as the actors they shared the screen with. Speaking of which, the cast delivers performances that balance disbelief with awe. In particular, the moments where human characters lock eyes with the unicorns are laden with subtext—fear, desire, guilt—making the creatures more than just set pieces.
Never Judge a Book by It’s Cover
At its core, Death of a Unicorn is an elegant, blood-soaked reminder that beauty doesn’t always equal benevolence, and danger doesn’t always come wrapped in darkness. Sometimes the most enchanting things in the world are also the most unwilling to be owned.
It’s tempting to see these unicorns as monsters, but the truth is far more nuanced. They are survivors, unwilling to soften themselves for a world that wants to sell them by the gram. Their violence is not cruelty—it’s the only language left to them.
In that way, they’re a perfect A24 creation: layered, morally complex, visually hypnotic. And if this is the future of mythmaking, then perhaps the old fairy tales were wrong. The unicorn doesn’t need to be tamed—it needs to be understood, respected, and, when necessary, feared.
After all, as Death of a Unicorn makes clear, the cover was never the whole story.